Roots Four Zero

By J. Darnell Johnson

In a cross between fantasy and realism, Roots Four Zero is about a fourteen-year-old slave girl called Zero. Her master named her Zero because he thought of her as a nothing. One day Zero finally finds the courage to run away and decides to find her roots. She enters a world of the unknown and the unsafe as a fugitive slave. She soon makes friends with a beautiful and benevolent butterfly lady named Azina, who shows her how to find her roots in the North with the help of the Underground Railroad. Azina instructs her how to locate the mysterious but very powerful town Griot to help her and her newfound runaway companions find their essence.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649526656

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Roots Four Zero

J. Darnell Johnson

Copyright © 2020 J. Darnell Johnson

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books, Inc.

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2020

ISBN 978-1-64952-664-9 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64952-665-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

No Roots

Queen Azina

No History, No Identity

No Culture

Moses

Bear Trap

Up a Tree

Free at Last

The Griot

Back to the Plantation

I’m Going to Tell You a Story—Hallelujah!

Chapter 1

No Roots

A few centuries ago, in the deep, deep South, lived a teenaged girl. She was very unhappy that she was separated from her family and sold to her wicked master and mistress as a newborn child. From sunup to sundown, she and the other Negroes on the plantation picked cotton, drew water from the well, carried bales of hay to the barn from the field, milked cows, and fed the chickens—all for no pay, I might add—doomed forever to that strange institution known as slavery, or as some call it, bondage.

The girl was named Zero by her master. Zero was not aware of her birth name as she had been living with her master and mistress from birth. No one else on the plantation was given a number for a name. They even made her wear a long dress with a high white collar sprinkled with the number zero. There must have been at least fifty zeros printed across her dress. It probably cost more to print the zeros on the dress than what the dress cost. She was meant to be seen as zero—a nothing—not ever knowing who she came from or even her original land of origin.

After fourteen years, Zero’s pain became intolerable. One day she was out in the field harvesting tobacco and suddenly belched out a loud moan as if she was pregnant and experienced her first contraction. It was as though she had been carrying her pain for fourteen years; with each year, the pain grew more intense. Now Zero was ready to deliver, and delivery meant she had to run away. Zero could sense her mistress jerk her neck after that loud moan just like she did when she accidentally, or not so accidentally, spilled a bucket of water on her mistress’s new dress. Zero had to run away from her master and mistress, but she was not sure where she would go.

Running away was risky busines, you know. If the hounds didn’t catch you, then the lynch men would. Once you get caught, you might receive one hundred lashes. Or you might have to work seven days a week rather than six. Or you could be made into peculiar and odd fruit hanging from the tree.

Everyday Master would crack his whip. Sometimes he cracked it just for fun. Sometimes he would crack it to scare the enslaved, and sometimes he would crack it to whoop one of them. That sound made Zero’s blood curl and her plump cheeks shake. She even had nightmares of the master threatening her, I’ll whip all the zeros off of you.

It was late into the night, and Zero arose from her slave cabin, careful to not disturb the other enslaved. Motivated by her strong desire to find her roots, she tiptoed out the door just like everyone else going to the outhouse. She turned and looked at the big house and, under her breath, said goodbye. She would never turn back.

Zero made her way into the forest where she didn’t know what danger lay ahead. Her eyes were wide open. She didn’t want to miss any White people. Then she remembered there was another plantation not less than five miles from hers.

Zero thought, Maybe I’ll go there. No, the town market. What am I thinking? I would be running right back into